


in rainbows

by MarkoftheAsphodel



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Genre: Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 08:36:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5702002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarkoftheAsphodel/pseuds/MarkoftheAsphodel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They share Quan and are perfectly content that way. A snapshot of the Leonster Trio (1.0) in Silesse. Posted for thenicochan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in rainbows

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this for a while because I felt the actual sparkle of Ethlyn didn't come through, but thenicochan on DW was interested in reading it so here we go.

Always my first, my most dearly beloved, he says as he strokes her long hair. So passionate, so adorable, so understanding...

The words in her ear blur into raw sensation and bursts of color, but Ethlyn holds on to the love that she hears in the sound. The warmth of feeling stays with her long after Quan has fallen asleep with his cheek resting by her shoulder. His breathing is now a calm, quiet rhythm and in the spaces between each breath she can hear the sound of another. 

-x-

In Silesse, nobles and servants all pile into the same bed together for warmth; even Queen Rahna doesn’t sleep without one of the Angelic Knights at her side. The presence of Alec, Noish, and Arden in Sigurd’s bedchamber can never make up for Deirdre’s absence but at least Lord Brother doesn’t wake cold and alone. Quan doesn’t keep their bed quite as crowded, but that in its own way stands out— they have room for more in the great feathered bed.

Finn sleeps on Quan’s right, Ethlyn to the left. So it was before they arrived in Silesse, so it will be after.

-x-

Quan provides a steady stream of gifts to brighten the long dark mornings of their exile. He fills her dressing table with hyacinths almost like the ones that bloom in Chalphy each May and won’t say where in the world he got them. He showers her with sweets, bonbons of pastel marzipan filled with jam and cream. One morning he leaves a brooch, an oval stone set in gold and silver filigree, among the bonbons. Quan leaves a note as well, explaining in his bold hand that the dawn-stone in her brooch is a rare gem found only in the isles of the northern shores of Silesse, in the coldest and most dangerous seas. The locals say it falls to the earth during the most magical displays of the Northern Lights, when every color of the rainbow dances in the winter sky.

The dawn-stone looks like black glass, but when Ethlyn holds the brooch in sunlight, colors play along its surface. From one angle she can see a shimmer of rose, like the clouds at daybreak, and from the opposite side Ethlyn catches a flash of blue like a jay’s feather. The rose and blue together transform the dark gem into something breathtaking. 

Ethlyn soon learns that Quan has bought two of the brooches. It would have surprised her if he hadn’t. 

-x-

Ethlyn wears her dawn-stone brooch as a fastener for the light scarf she wears even indoors, as the winter’s chill seeps into the very stones of Sailane. Finn wears his pinned to the jacket in place of the military honors Quan has promised him when they get home.

They share Quan but don’t share in one another. Ethlyn’s made the attempt a few times, stealing a kiss from Finn on the rare mornings when the two of them lie together in bed and Quan is elsewhere. Each time she tries it Finn looks up at her with surprise in his bright blue eyes and the kisses have been as chaste as a timid schoolgirl’s. She doesn’t feel toward him exactly like a sister or a mother, but it’s close enough that Ethlyn decides not to press for much more than these close-mouthed kisses and nuzzles.

It’s for the best. She wants more children with Quan, two or even three in addition to Altena, and one of them may well have brilliant blue hair like her lord father and brother… and Finn. There will be talk, she knows, but there won’t be doubt. Not on her part, and not on Quan’s.

She has never had any reason to doubt Quan, either. He’s always been perfectly honest with her. 

-x-

Ethlyn, he says, and her name sounds like music. Ethlyn, my love.

Love is for her alone. Quan uses different words with Finn. Even in the dark of the bedchamber, each of them knows their place always. 

-x-

Some of the other women look at her with questions in their eyes. Don’t you mind, even a little? That’s what Aideen says without ever speaking it. I would never put up with this, Ayra tells her through silence. They don’t quite understand that Ethlyn doesn’t mind, that she’s not tolerating the situation, that she doesn’t have to forgive Quan any trespasses against their vows.

Ethlyn knows exactly where her limits are. She grew up the hostess of Chalphy Castle, after all, and it fell to her to entertain the other noble ladies of Grannvale— the second and third wives young enough to be the daughters of their honored husbands, the ladies who weren’t countesses or marchionesses in any legal sense but had to be received with courtesy all the same, even the ones who were openly scheming against the legitimate heirs of their unloved liege ladies. Ethlyn could receive these women with a smile because deep down she pitied them and blamed the lords for such disgraceful situations. She is proud to her core that her father is not one of these men; if Duke Byron sought any comfort after the death of his first and only duchess, Ethlyn never heard a whisper of it. Her lord father is either utterly virtuous or utterly discreet.

Quan could use a lesson or two on discretion, perhaps, Ethlyn thinks as she plays with her brooch by the fireside. But if Deirdre’s influence could mold Lord Brother from the amiable slob he’d been a few years before into the leader he’s become, then Ethlyn really ought to take her father’s example and use it to guide Quan toward being even better than he is. 

Ethlyn knows that men are not supposed to be perfect, that only the gods can be perfect, whatever that even means. But men like her father and Lord Brother and Quan are closer to gods than anyone, and so they have the ability to be more perfect than anyone, don’t they? It’s not entirely her own thought— it’s something Finn said in Agustria as the kingdom started coming apart at the seams and they all began to question what good they were even doing by occupying the place. She’s wondered at times how perfect Finn imagines Quan to be, but of late she’s exchanged a meaningful glance or three with Finn when Quan isn’t being reasonable, and she suspects he’s not entirely dazzled by Quan’s brilliance.

Love and loyalty don’t have to be blind. If they learned anything in Agustria, it was that.

-x-

Ethlyn remembers the first time she saw Quan alone in conversation with Ayra. Ethlyn was carrying Altena then and she’d felt round and miserable, drowning in the muggy air of Verdane’s summer. Ayra was as swift and graceful as a falcon, and Ethlyn felt the low mean sensation of jealousy for the first time in her married life. It passed quickly, a brief squall darkening her heart, but she remembered.

She knows she couldn’t put up with another woman sharing Quan’s bed. Someone who could bear Quan children to compete with Altena, someone who might be praying for Ethlyn to conveniently die so that they might wed Quan, be his princess and his queen? Even in her dream of love, Ethlyn is clear-eyed enough to see all that as unthinkable. It’s bad politics, even— she is still Chalphy’s daughter and Chalphy couldn’t stand for that.

But that is not how things are with Quan.

-x-

Beautiful, Quan says to her as he touches her cheek, her nose, and she knows love has colored his vision and doesn’t care. She’s never been a beauty— not like Aideen, not like Ayra, not like poor Deirdre and not like the winged knights of Silesse. She has been cute all her life, but cute is not beautiful.

Finn is not beautiful either. Quan is handsome, Lord Brother is dashing, and their poor friend King Eldigan was beautiful in his way, but cute might also be the best word for Finn. His chin comes to a delicate point, his eyebrows are finely drawn, and his cheeks are still a little rounded, a little soft. 

It’s occurred to Ethlyn that they do make a well-matched pair for Quan, and not just in that they were precisely the same height when they set out together in Quan’s company. 

-x-

Quan’s ignoring Finn tonight. His lips are all Ethlyn’s right now, and he begins with her toes, bringing her to the verge of giggles before he kisses his way to her ankle. She entwines her fingers in his thick chestnut hair and holds onto her secret until his teasing trail of kisses reaches her belly.

“Altena is going to have a little brother.”

His lips are already pressed against her skin, but in response to her confession, he swoons against her, and Ethlyn imagines that she’s actually caused him to melt, that the heat will make her melt in turn. He is hers, and she his, and this moment entirely theirs in ways that the others may never understand.

-x-

Quan's turned their bed into a mat of hyacinth, cloud-pink and sky-blue. She has a dawn-stone pendant now to match the brooch and she’s wearing it to bed as Quan sleeps next to her. Finn does not get a pendant, because as well-matched as they might be in making Quan happy, in one regard they will never be equal and he understands this as well as Ethlyn does.

“We’ll go home soon,” she says over the sound of Quan’s breathing. Finn turns his head toward her a little and smiles, because “home” is such a wonderful promise after the bloodied fields of Agustria and the stark icy beauty of Silesse. Ethlyn could speak of other promises to Finn, of the honors that await him in court, of the bright future he has under Quan’s patronage, but there’s no need. They are bound together by Quan and with Quan—not by praise or presents, by Leonster’s wealth or its honor— because together they can help Quan be the great king he’s destined to be. Together they can make him more perfect.

She reaches across Quan toward Finn, her hand open and welcoming, and a moment later Finn lets his fingers touch against her in silent agreement. They each settle against their sleeping prince, a glow of pink on the left, a glimmer of blue on the right, and close their eyes against the Silessian darkness.


End file.
